Anyone who is familiar with the preparation, serving, or consumption of the Mexican dish known as taco's, is aware of the difficulties encountered with depositing and retaining the various fillings, within the taco shell. These difficulties are directly attributable to the unique configuration of the taco shell itself, which normally lays on its side with or without a filling.
The traditional way of eating tacos has been to fill and consume individual taco's and then repeat the process. This manner of eating taco's has not presented a problem because it is a very simple matter for a person to maintain an individual taco shell, in an upright position during the relatively short period of time it takes to be consumed.
However, the American style of eating taco's, requires that a plurality of shells be filled, and then consumed on an individual basis. The problem then arises, as to how to maintain the remaining taco's in an upright position, so that the fillings will not spill out.
The various proposed solutions, that have been spawned by this problem, are represented in the following U.S. Pat. Nos: 4,004,501, and 3,782,582.
As can be seen by reference to these patents, while all of the prior art devices are adequate for their intended purpose, they do not provide the flexibility of accommodating single or multiple holders that will hold any one of a plurality of given number of taco shells. Stated in other terms, the previous holders are not expansible or contractible to only hold a chosen number of shells.
Up until the development of the present invention, a person either had to be satisfied with a plurality of noninteracting individual holders, or a multi-unit holder that would only accommodate a given number of shells. The present invention is designed to overcome the deficiencies found in the prior art, and combine the flexibility, expansibility, and interaction that the public has demanded.